The real problem is that behind every party in power is an establishment that is utterly devoted to maintaining the status quo i.e. rich people and establishment figures get the cash, everyone else is subject to the vagaries and capriciousness of our economical status at an given point in time.

The effect the incumbent government has on the public's quality of life is partly due to how much they embrace this culture. The tories alway have, and still are an old boys club of toffs and moneyed folk who attract the aspirational (but perpetually denied) middle classes; they have in effect created a consumer class, something very dear to the patron saint of the middle class Margaret Thatcher and one of her most insidious achievements. We all knew well before Wikileaks that the current crop of tory wonks were Thatcher's children - not really news.

As for the Labour party, they too were held in the thrall of the consumerist ideal and this is why they failed their natural constituency, the working classes. They had to embrace the culture of (false) aspiration and they did so, although to their credit they did have a social conscience so did make the NHS and welfare state more supportive. In the end they played the establishment game and look where it led us; already in some areas people are waiting longer for operations as the tory government, elected on the back of a deficit that was caused largely by the very people who support them, now start to wreak destruction on the second best thing Labour ever did - help those at the bottom of society.